The autumn leaves are falling like rain. Although my neighbors are all barbarians and you, you are a thousand miles away, there are always two cups at my table.

T’ang Dynasty poem

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

~ Wu-men ~

Saturday, October 08, 2016

Martial Arts Shapes Us

Below is an excerpt that appeared in NYMAG.Com's Science of US section: How Exercise Shapes You.It absolutely applied to martial arts practice. The full article may be read here.

When
I first started training for marathons a little over ten years ago, my
coach told me something I’ve never forgotten: that I would need to learn
how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. I didn’t know it at the
time, but that skill, cultivated through running, would help me as
much, if not more, off the road as it would onit.

It’s
not just me, and it’s not just running. Ask anyone whose day regularly
includes a hard bike ride, sprints in the pool, a complex problem on the
climbing wall, or a progressive powerlifting circuit, and they’ll
likely tell you the same: A difficult conversation just doesn’t seem so
difficult anymore. A tight deadline not so intimidating. Relationship
problems not so problematic.

Maybe it’s that if you’re regularly working out, you’re simply too tired to care. But that’s probably not the case. Research
shows that, if anything, physical activity boosts short-term brain
function and heightens awareness. And even on days they don’t train —
which rules out fatigue as a factor — those who habitually push their
bodies tend to confront daily stressors with a stoic demeanor. While
the traditional benefits of vigorous exercise — like prevention and
treatment of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, and
osteoporosis — are well known and often reported, the most powerful
benefit might be the lesson that my coach imparted to me: In a world
where comfort is king, arduous physical activity provides a rare
opportunity to practicesuffering.

Few
hone this skill better than professional endurance and adventure
athletes, who make a living withstanding conditions others cannot. For
my column with Outside Magazine, I’ve
had the privilege of interviewing the world’s top endurance and
adventure athletes on the practices underlying their success. Regardless
of sport, the most resounding theme, by far, is that they’ve all
learned how to embrace uncomfortablesituations:

• Olympic marathoner Des Linden told
me that at mile 20 of 26.2, when the inevitable suffering kicks in,
through years of practice she’s learned to stay relaxed and in the
moment. She repeats the mantra: “calm, calm, calm; relax, relax,relax.”

• World-champion big-wave surfer Nic Lamb says
being uncomfortable, and even afraid, is a prerequisite to riding
four-story waves. But he also knows it’s “the path to personal
development.” He’s learned that while you can pull back, you can almost
always push through. “Pushing through is courage. Pulling back is
regret,” hesays.

• Free-soloist Alex Honnold explains
that, “The only way to deal with [pain] is practice. [I] get used to it
during training so that when it happens on big climbs, it feelsnormal.”

• Evelyn Stevens, the women’s record holder for most miles cycled in an hour (29.81 – yes, that’s nuts), says that during her hardest training intervals, “instead of thinking I want these to be over, I try to feel and sit with the pain. Heck, I even try to embraceit.”

• Big-mountain climber Jimmy Chin, the first American to climb up — and then ski down — Mt. Everest’s South Pillar Route, told
me an element of fear is there in everything he does, but he’s learned
how to manage it: “It’s about sorting out perceived risk from real risk,
and then being as rational as possible with what’sleft.”

But
you don’t need to scale massive vertical pitches or run five-minute
miles to reap the benefits. Simply training for your first half marathon
or CrossFit competition can also yield huge dividends that carry over
into other areas of life. In the words
of Kelly Starrett, one of the founding fathers of the CrossFit
movement, “Anyone can benefit from cultivating a physical practice.”
Science backs himup.

A study published in the British Journal of Health Psychology found
that college students who went from not exercising at all to even a
modest program (just two to three gym visits per week) reported a
decrease in stress, smoking, alcohol and caffeine consumption, an
increase in healthy eating and maintenance of household chores, and
better spending and study habits. In addition to these real-life
improvements, after two months of regular exercise, the students also
performed better on laboratory tests of self-control. This led the
researchers to speculate that exercise had a powerful impact on the
students’ “capacity for self-regulation.” In laypeople’s terms, pushing
through the discomfort associated with exercise — saying “yes” when
their bodies and minds were telling them to say “no” — taught the
students to stay cool, calm, and collected in the face of difficulty,
whether that meant better managing stress, drinking less, or studyingmore.